was a series of rebellions against the Russian czar (emperor), Nicholas II.
The revolution swept away the Russian monarchy and laid the foundation for the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ruled Russia and its neighboring republics for 70 years.
Background to the revolution Russia experienced great changes in the second half of the 1800s and early
1900s. The serfs (rural slaves) were freed in 1861. However, they received little land and were heavily in debt. In the towns and cities, industrialization changed the face of Russian society.
Upset Russians formed a number of political organizations, all of which the government tried to repress. There were four broad types of groups, with some overlapping ideals. Liberals wanted democratic checks on the power of the czars. Nationalists sought greater independence from Moscow for populations in Eastern
Europe, the Caucasus, and elsewhere. Peasant socialists sought to start a revolution among the Russian peasants. Marxists wanted a revolution among the city and town workers.
In 1898, the Marxists formed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. In 1903, it split into two groups.
Vladimir Lenin, argued that party membership should be limited to a small number of professional revolutionaries. His opponents supported fewer limitations on party membership. Lenin named his faction the
Bolsheviks (“members of the majority”) and his opponents the Mensheviks (“members of the minority”).
The 1905 Revolution In the early 1900s, Russia’s economy slowed, the country waged an unsuccessful war with Japan, and social unrest grew. On Sunday, Jan. 22, 1905, thousands of men, women, and children peacefully marched to Czar Nicholas's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, the capital city. Their intent was to ask for better working conditions and a democratically elected assembly. The czar's soldiers fired on the demonstrators, killing or wounding hundreds of them.
These "Bloody Sunday" shootings fueled larger demonstrations. The liberals formed a Union of Unions to help coordinate strikes and protests by different groups. A wave of strikes that began in September grew into a huge general strike in mid-October. Nicholas then agreed to set up an elected lawmaking body, called the
Duma (parliament), to advise him, but strikes continued. In St. Petersburg, revolutionaries set up a soviet
(council) called the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. In December 1905, the army crushed an uprising in Moscow and police arrested the members of the St. Petersburg Soviet, including revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky.
Nicholas refused to give up much power, and the Duma did not work in the way the liberals had hoped. The czar dissolved the first two Dumas after only a few months. For the third Duma, Nicholas changed the election law so fewer workers and peasants could vote and so that border regions lost some representation. These changes resulted in a Duma controlled by supporters of the czar.
World War I (1914-1918) highlighted the weakness of czarist rule. Germany declared war on Russia in
August 1914. Soon afterward, Russia changed the German-sounding name of St. Petersburg to Petrograd. The
Germans easily overwhelmed a Russian army that was poorly trained. The war strained the Russian economy.
Shortages of food and fuel resulted, increasing the level of social discontent. Within the army, untrained soldiers became rebellious. Many Russian army units refused to go on fighting the war with Germany.
The February Revolution On March 8, 1917 (February 25, on the old Russian calendar), strikes and riots over food and coal shortages broke out in Petrograd. This uprising became known as the February Revolution.
Military troops sent to stop the uprising instead joined the demonstrators.
In response, some moderate and liberal members of the Duma set up a provisional government. On March 15,
1917, the government forced Czar Nicholas to abdicate (give up his throne). Nicholas and his family were later taken into custody. The Bolsheviks killed them at Yekaterinburg in 1918.

Also in March 1917, leaders of several workers’ groups, left-leaning members of the Duma, and some soldiers revived the Petrograd soviet that had been first set up in 1905. The new soviet—called the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies—opposed the provisional government. It became a model for other soviets that were soon set up throughout Russia.
This environment, in which both the provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet claimed authority, became known as “Dual Power.” The provisional government drew support from business people, military officers, and government officials. The Soviet had support among industrial workers and enlisted soldiers.
Vladimir Lenin, returned to Petrograd in April 1917. He began calling for an overthrow of the provisional government. In July, soldiers began another uprising in Petrograd. Once order was restored, the provisional government ordered Lenin to be arrested. Lenin fled to Finland. Other leading Bolsheviks escaped or were imprisoned. Later that month, the provisional government appointed the socialist Alexander Kerensky as prime minister.
In September 1917, General Kornilov, the army commander, made a bid to seize power. As Kornilov advanced on Petrograd, Kerensky released the imprisoned Bolsheviks and allowed them to arm the workers. Kornilov's force broke up before reaching the capital, and the coup attempt ended without violence. With their popularity on the rise, especially among soldiers, the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet soon after the
“Kornilov affair.”
The October Revolution Leon Trotsky, who had escaped in 1907 and gone into exile, returned to Petrograd in May 1917 and was chosen to head the soviet there in September. Soon after, Lenin returned from Finland and urged the Bolsheviks to take power from the provisional government. On Nov. 7, 1917, a Bolshevik-led army of workers, soldiers, and sailors took control of key positions in Petrograd. That night, they captured the
Winter Palace, which had become the headquarters of Kerensky's provisional government. Other cities, including Moscow, soon fell to the Bolsheviks.
On Nov. 8, 1917, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets authorized the Bolsheviks to set up a Council of People's
Commissars to run the national government. Local soviets in towns and cities throughout Russia gave workers control of factories and confiscated the property of large landowners, the Russian Orthodox Church, and anyone who opposed the revolution.
The new government quickly withdrew Russia from the war with Germany. On Dec. 2, 1917, Russia negotiated a cease-fire. On March 3, 1918, the government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to prevent German invasion. Under this treaty, Russia lost a quarter of its territory. Ukraine and Finland became independent.
Bessarabia (now mostly part of Moldova), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Polish territory that had been ruled by Russia fell under German control. Russia lost many of its factories and about a third of its foodproducing land.
In March 1918, the Bolshevik government moved the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow. The
Bolsheviks also altered the name of their Russian Social Democratic Labor Party to the Russian Communist
Party. It later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In July 1918, a Soviet constitution went into effect.
Barely a month after the October Revolution, counterrevolutionaries—known as Whites—began organizing resistance. Trotsky set up the Red Army (named for the red Communist flag) to fight the counterrevolutionaries. The Red (Communist) Russians, aided by the peasantry, fought a bloody civil war with the Whites for nearly three years. Fighters from France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States supported the Whites. Foreign-led resistance to the government continued in eastern Siberia for almost two years. But by 1920, the Communists had won and the revolution was complete.
At first, many foreign nations refused to recognize the new Soviet government. The United Kingdom recognized the Soviet Union in 1924, followed by the United States in 1933. The Communist system finally ended in Russia in 1991, two years after it had collapsed in the East European countries. The Soviet Union itself also broke up.